Beijing: France’s Bourbon has signed a sale-and-lease contract for 51 vessels worth up to $1.5bn with China's ICBC Financial Leasing. The OSV operator is one of the most significant clients at Chinese shipyards.
Twenty-four of the vessels are in operation and 27 of them are under construction and will be delivered within 14 months.
The deal is part of Bourbon’s plans to reduce debt.
Bourbon announced it plans to divest up to 85 vessels to raise around $2.5bn.
Christian Lefevre, ceo of Bourbon, said: “This operation won’t affect our fleet standardisation strategy as the vessels in the bareboat lease come from our vessel series; they have been designed and built to our standards and Bourbon retains full operational responsibility for its vessels.”
“Through this project, we would like to establish a long and stable relation of cooperation with Bourbon, further expand our leasing business in offshore market, and set up business relations with more domestic and overseas corporations in the future” said Lin Cong, the president of ICBC Financial Leasing. [10/04/13]
